


SPN fic: Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

by celli



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: picfor1000, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-28
Updated: 2007-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have faith in God, but lock your door. --Dutch saying</p>
            </blockquote>





	SPN fic: Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://picfor1000.livejournal.com/profile)[**picfor1000**](http://picfor1000.livejournal.com/) challenge. My picture is [here](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/picfor1000/challenge%205/earth/e25.jpg). Thanks to [](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/profile)[**barely_bean**](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/), [](http://slodwick.livejournal.com/profile)[**slodwick**](http://slodwick.livejournal.com/), and [](http://scrunchy.livejournal.com/profile)[**scrunchy**](http://scrunchy.livejournal.com/) for the betas. Title from the Dixie Chicks song "Sin Wagon."

_O Lord, who has said, "My yoke is sweet and my burden light," grant that I may so carry it as to merit Thy grace._

  
It was nearly 5:30 in the morning by the time Dean had dispatched the _kaga,_ and he burned and buried as quickly as he could.

"It sets a bad example when I'm late," he lectured its furry head. "What kind of a role model do you want me to be?"

The thought of himself as a role model was always good for a laugh, and he was decidedly cheerful by the time he left for home.

The lights of Buffalo, and past it, Bison glowed faintly in the distance--very faintly, they weren't very big towns-as Dean headed along South Dakota Highway 85, past fields and herds and farmhouses just waking for the day. The air smelled like hay, hay, and more hay, and there was just a touch of frost along the side of the road. Winters tended to be too harsh here for even evil things to make their way through the northern half of the state. Dean had spent most of his nights the prior winter doing research and prank calling Stanford student housing. He was ready for a little more action before the walls closed around him again.

Of course, it was Halloween weekend. Any hunter worth his salt and silver should be able to find some things to hunt around Halloween. Dean grinned through his cold coffee.

Bison approached almost before he was ready for it. He pulled into the shabby parking lot with only a slight squeal of tires, and took a minute he didn't really have to catch his breath and his focus. Time to be somebody else for a while now.

He swung out of the Impala, patting her side absently, and hurried up the steps into the back door of the church. Outside, a wooden sign kicked slightly in the wind.

BLESSED SACRAMENT CATHOLIC CHURCH  
REV. DEAN WINCHESTER, PASTOR

Dean shooed out the altar boys and Deacon Thomas so he could shower and disarm in peace. His reputation was established enough that no one even looked surprised at his dirty leather jacket or his borderline lateness. He was a little afraid, actually, to find out why no one ever asked him questions, he thought with a snort as he moved the note on his mirror so he could shave. He moved it back when he was done, and _call Sammy--law school interview Monday!!_ clung to the mirror, with Dean's wet thumbprint in one corner.

His ankle gun and the lead and salt ammo were all tucked away neatly in the closet, behind the safe where the collection money was kept. Dean always had one silver knife snug against his lower back at all times, just in case there was anything his smile and his Latin couldn't defend against. (Pastor Jim's advice, a long time ago, during one of Dad's longer absences from their home base in Minnesota, the year Dean had learned that being a hunter was as much a calling as the priesthood.)

There was a raised voice outside, and Dean sighed. Some things even the most devoted ritual couldn't save him from--although he admitted he'd imagined performing an exorcism on Patricia Hamlin a few times, just to make sure.

He set aside his street clothes and slid on his vestments with practiced focus: amice, alb, cincture. Maniple, stole. Each with their own invocation. Each layer pulled him farther from ghosts and demons and hunting and closer to the everyday miracles the people waiting for him could comprehend. He wrestled the chausuble on last, smoothing down the cross and crown on the front, murmuring a prayer about burdens and grace.

Back in the day, the vestments used to weigh him down, hamper his movements. Now he moved as easily in them as a jacket and jeans (although his vanity forced him to admit he looked better in the jeans). He could even take down a vampire in them--although he'd rather not, they were dry-clean only.

One pause, to take a last solitary breath and to tap the frame of his mother's picture, displayed on a table next to a candle and a statue of the Virgin Mary, and he was ready.

He made his way into the hallway, nodding at the altar boys holding the cross and candle and the reader carrying the scriptures--Patricia, which explained the overheard argument. She looked about to approach him, but he looked solemnly past her and she subsided for the moment. The Eucharistic minister, a brand new parishioner, looked as though she were about to bash Patricia in the head with the nearest holy candlestick. He bumped her elbow with his in passing.

"Offer it up, Meg," he muttered. She shot him the evil eye.

Dean made his way to the back of the line, looked around one last time, and gave the high sign to the choir director. The ushers pulled the doors wide, and the procession began into the chapel proper. Incense and a song about the city of God filled the building, sweeping everyone in it to their feet.

Dean couldn't help a small smile as he raised his voice with the rest. He'd never get over the rush he got walking into church. Into his church, filled with his people. It was as good as the satisfaction he got from bringing down some evil son of a bitch.

It reminded him of something else, too, although he'd tell his Sunday School class about hunting a striga before he'd admit it to them. Dean smirked to himself. There _had_ been a life before he became Father Dean Winchester. Just because you took a vow of chastity didn't mean you had to take one of amnesia, too, he always said.

The song ended and Dean stood behind the altar, arms outstretched. "The Lord be with you," he called.

"And also with you."


End file.
